Questions raised about possible Nazi contacts of Jean Sibelius

Jean Sibelius

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Connections that Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) had with Nazi Germany have been discussed in the online version of The Chronicle of Higher Education.
      In the article, writer Peter Monaghan examines a lecture by Timothy L. Jackson, a professor of music at the University of North Texas.
      The lecture was based on an essay which is to be published next year under the heading Sibelius the Political in a collection of articles entitled Sibelius in the Old and New World: Aspects of His Music, Its Interpretation, and Reception.
     
Jackson is interested in the period starting from 1933, when Sibelius was no longer publishing new works and did not travel abroad.
      As Jackson sees it, Sibelius had connections that would seem to suggest a sympathy with the Nazi ideology. For instance, in 1942, Sibelius agreed to an interview with an SS correspondent and was what Jackson calls "very friendly" with at least two Nazis, both SS members, namely Günther Thaer and Helmuth Thierfelder.
      Thaer published a number of articles based on his conversations and communications with Sibelius.
      With regard to conductor Thierfelder, Sibelius intervened in the internal affairs of the Reichsmusikkammer to support Thierfelder but refused later in the 1930s to give help to composer Günther Raphael, who was declared a half-Jew by the National Socialists, although he had given his recommendation to Raphael in 1932.
      Sibelius also got copyright money and a pension from Germany, says Jackson.
     
Professor Veijo Murtomäki and journalist Vesa Sirén have responded to Jackson, saying that the facts highlighted by the American are interesting, but that the conclusions that he draws are overblown, and rely on inadequate knowledge of the sources.
      Sirén took issue with Jackson’s claim that getting copyright payments from Germany suggested that he was “on the Nazi payroll”.
      “Copyright payments came from all over the world, and if he would have refused to accept payments from Germany, he would have actually supported the Nazis with that money."
      For the Finns, copyright money and a pension do not make Sibelius a Nazi sympathiser.
      Nor does an interview by an SS-member or a few meetings. "He received hundreds of people and an amazing number of journalists from all over the world in Ainola. This is the context", says Sirén.
     
The recommendation issue would need further research.
      "Sibelius gave so many that he said he was in a nest of lies. Sometimes he just got tired and refused after giving too many", Sirén claims.
      Jackson says that both copyright and pension money was "Nazified" because for example Jews, communists, and others were not paid.
      "By accepting this Nazified pension, Sibelius participated in this process; by contrast, conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler explicitly refused to do so."
     
Finland tried to remain neutral in the 1930s, but was attacked by the Soviet Union in late 1939.
      Germany provided weapons to Finland from 1941-1944 and the two countries were co-belligerents in the so-called Continuation War against the Soviet Union.
     
Sibelius sent cordial greetings when the Sibelius Society was established in Germany in 1942 (12 years after the setting up of the British Sibelius Society), but condemned for example Nazi brutality and anti-Semitic doctrines in his diary and to his relatives.
     
Jackson and Finnish Sibelius experts have exchanged e-mails about many other matters as well.
      “We send background information to the Professor, who unfortunately is unable to read material written in Finnish and Swedish - not even Sibelius’s diary or most of his correspondence. Already it seems that both sides can benefit from the exchange of ideas and sources", Sirén says.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Sibelius - an erotic symbolist (7.9.2009)
  Branding Jean Sibelius (7.9.2007)

Links:
  The Chronicle of higher Education: A Composer´s Ties to Nazi Germany Come Under New Scrutiny

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